I have been reading some pretty incomplete and wayward discussions of Roman and Neapolitan styles recently and decided to draft a little introduction to the subject.
I suppose the best place to begin is with a view of sartorial Italy and its major centers. In the north and center of the country, the areas of Milan, Turin, Venice, Florence and Genova come immediately to mind. But it is the south and in particular the region of the former Kingdom of Two Sicilies with its capital in Naples, that is of interest to us in this tour. The major centers of sartorial production in the south of Italy have not changed for over a century: Abruzzo, Puglia, Campania and Sicily.
Domenico Caraceni 1919
Domenico Caraceni left his native Abruzzese village in the early years of the last century to venture to Rome where he set up a practice that would flourish to this day. Brioni’s tailoring still takes place in a factory in the mountains 70 miles east of Rome and only its showroom and boutique is in Rome. So the rustic denizens of the Abruzzo mountains have tempered over time adapting their work for a discerning Roman clientele. But there is something of the rustic there nevertheless.
For our purposes the story of Neapolitan tailoring begins with one man who started to create his version of the “lounge suit” about the same time as Caraceni in Rome and Scholte in London. His name was Attolini and when he joined up with Gennaro Rubinacci in the 1930s, London House was born. But the Naples story would be incomplete without the mention of Angelo Blasi who working in the same 1930s created a different tendency and completely different look whose trace can still be seen today.
Angelo Blasi
Biagio Mazzuoccolo was putting the finishing touches on a wonderful tweed coat when I posed him a question. “I have seen the works of fifteen tailors here in town. While the finishing and some aspects of the styling share common ground, there is a lot of variance with respect to cut and construction. How do you explain this? I mean is there really a Neapolitan style of coat?” Mazzuocolo stared into the tourist’s blue gray eyes and in a moment of generosity not common among his peers began a description of a city and its tailors, and more importantly a style that ten years later would become a global icon for well dressed men. “There are two major sartorial schools in Naples, the Blasi school and the Attolini school”, he began. Pen in hand and jotting notes all along the way as I listened, Mazzuocolo asked me “so you have probably seen a structured narrow coat and a long shouldered soft one. Is this right? ….The narrow coat would be almost two inches narrower in the shoulder compared to what we have in your coat”, he said pointing to the completely natural spalla camicia cuddled in his hand. “That narrow cut is Blasi and the one that suits you better is more Attolini.”
Mazzuocolo was right. The narrow team shaved a full two inches off the breadth of the shoulder measure I was used to on SR. The result would have made me look like an emaciated scarecrow with a huge pumpkin head. “You will be better off with a tailor like Rubinacci but don’t tarry too long at Attolini e Palermo behind the cinema, he will have you in a straightjacket these days.” The Attolinis had taken an entirely different direction from the one their ancestors had forged with Rubinacci. “It’s a younger look, narrow silhouette, close to the body a little pad in the shoulder. It’s gonna be big in confezione like Brioni and Kiton. “
Sure enough the new Attolini and Kiton looked much different from either the Blasi or Attolini heritages. They were essentially padded ready to wear coats tailored with lots of screaming gadgets and sartorial embellishments that were intended to put Naples on the map. “Go to take a trip to Brioni, if you want to see tailors who know how to work. They are the best in the world.”
The trip from the languid warm easy seaside of Naples, Capri, the Amalfi coast to the cold, dark green mountains of Abruzzo can be made in the hand, touching the two tailored coats of these regions. Mountain people favor protection and security. They are a different race of men, closed, protective, secretive, intense and hardworking. The sun bronzed gods by the sea live the real dolce vita with not an apparent care in the world except for the verses of the next song or the provenance of the next pleasure.
A Rubinacci coat and Domenico Caraceni circa 1938.
The mountain man’s coat is hard and square, there are edges sewn with care. The bronzed man’s coat is softer, with no rough edges, falling without a care in the world, only the essential pleasure of being an end unto itself and an art form.
Alberto Sordi, in 1960s Caraceni
Vittorio de Sica wearing Rubinacci
Tyrone Power sporting Caraceni
Toto in pure Neapolitan splendor
I had a chance last years to spend a few moments with Mariano Rubinacci in London when he explained to me how his father sent a family member to live in London near Savile Row to learn from the styles that were developing there so as to bring them to Naples, to London House. “It’s a realization of a dream to be here in London after those beginnings.” And you do see Scholte in Rubinacci’s cut, the extended shoulder, drape and comfortable shape. You will find some nicely made clothes in Naples, but you won’t find another tailor who cuts like Rubinacci does and part of the explanation might come directly from Savile Row. Is this a hybrid look instead of a purely Neapolitan one? We will discover another example of same in Rome.
Arturo Cifonelli learned his trade from his father Giuseppe in Rome. But rather than stay put in the Italian capital in the business his father had crafted since the late 1860s, Arturo decided to go to London, to Savile Row. Returning to Italy in 1911, he opened his Paris shop in 1930. You will see the SR influence in this coat, one that is much more worldly than the Caraceni products of the same period.
A handsome Cifonelli suit
So buttoning the top two buttons of a three button front is taboo? Poppycock! So this Roman style is a hybrid style as much SR as Abruzzo and with charm to spare. Cifonelli and Rubinacci, two hybrids who benefited from some SR pollination? It very well might be.
Take a look at Abruzzo style and compare the Cifonelli for yourself.
So the Roman versus Neapolitan discussion is a bit more complicated than we might have imagined and we have barely scraped the thin surface with these notes. In Naples and Rome there are many different styles and cuts, not one single Neapolitan or Roman. In fact, there are as many philosophies about cutting and style as there are tailors to espouse them. Influences from the past and from foreign climes add to the sauce that is rich with flavor. The best way to understand is to go there and see all the works for yourself, hold them in your hand and if you are very lucky, listen to some great stories.